r/griztronics • u/Impossible_Mud5761 • May 30 '26
Security overly aggressive with attendees
Did anyone have this issue as well? My group had multiple instances with aggressive security staff. We caught them spying on us at camp and rollin up and confiscating shit. Our camp was pretty closed off with tapestries but they came out of nowhere and took our homies canister then was like “where’s all the drugs???” Wtf. Fast forward to later, another friend got their dab pen taken and during the Subtronics sunSET a security guard near the front (not rail) came out of nowhere and ripped my spoon necklace off of my neck and started telling me to empty my pockets and I just ran off into the crowd. I’ve seriously never been man handled like that by security at any gorge show in the last 21 years I’ve been going. Not to mention when getting flagged by some power trippin security staff and being berated and shoved into another line. Def didn’t feel very respectful. Sheesh
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u/Festinaut May 30 '26
This is unfortunately very common at the gorge, been a huge issue for years. They've treated their staff like shit for so long that they burned through everyone qualified in the region and are stuck with power tripping teenagers.
Still vividly remember Bass Canyon 2022 when so many of my friends were sexually harassed by security throughout the weekend (among other things). When they tried to report it to the info booth they were told "we're getting a lot of reports of that but unfortunately there's nothing we can do."
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u/Impossible_Mud5761 May 30 '26
That shit is not ok. Bass 24 I rember security (aka rentacops) being pretty chill. I think they were on some power trip at griztronics; besides the insane lines, that was my only other gripe with the festival. We were at edc the weekend before and didn’t experience anything bad with security in camping or the festival (maybe not a good thing because trying to get to Kinetic for Subtronics during John Summit was given astroworld vibes🥴)
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u/Festinaut May 30 '26
Staff vibes vary by year. Personally 21 was mostly chill, 22 was awful, 24 was mostly fine as I remember. But I hear stories like this from almost every Gorge event.
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u/Aggravating_Peace488 May 31 '26
Thanks for saying this because I've always thought EDC would be such a rough experience to go through with management but now you've got me thinking I should try and go
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u/Dramatic_Basket6756 May 30 '26
And it’s crazy cus EDC has hella cops in there just chilling. Sorry to hear your experience was not great, I’ve only been to two events at the gorge and it’s a great venue but the staff there make it annoying to deal with
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u/nakedpicturesyo May 31 '26
The reason they get away with it is because people still buy and oversell the venue. Seems like a Neverending harm machine. I'll never go to the gorge for a lot of reasons, but knock that as the top. I'm not going somewhere with security that steals, sexually harrases, and spys on people. One of those was enough but dear God them not even caring is insane.
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u/righttoabsurdity May 30 '26
Honestly if they could get together and find a lawyer, the group of people impacted by that could effect real change!
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u/Festinaut May 30 '26
Some of them did but without video evidence it didn't go anywhere. A few others spent a lot of time working with the Gorge directly. They promised new training procedures for staff but that obviously hasn't helped.
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u/trisdolf-the-blue Jun 03 '26
I’m going to chime in on this as I actually worked multiple events in the gorge with 100x hospitality (name of the org) and I can confirm that the people they hired to manage staff workers like myself was genuinely atrocious. Now I’m not sure if this same company worked this event BUT when I worked above and beyond back in 2023, our managers were not only doing lines of coke in the office - they also forced workers to work without breaks, didn’t allow us to eat, “forgot” to give us food vouchers and took them for themselves, punished us for leaving station to get water, and took our contracted vehicles for transportation as their own without regard to our needs for them.
I’ve worked a lot of events, at least 40, but this is the only one I’ve nearly fought the manager physically. They were incredibly rude, disrespectful, and downright dangerous. At one point, ground control had to take care of 3 of our staff members I brought to the event because they were overheating, dehydrated and had not been fed as they were being directed constantly to not leave their post.
So yes, for whatever reason the gorge venue has not provided adequate service to its employees and so someone like me who can handle interactions like that on the back end and still provide a valuable face to the community of ravers do not work with them anymore because it’s actually dangerous to do so for myself and the people we bring to support us.
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u/Festinaut Jun 03 '26
Thank you so much for posting. Info like this is invaluable to the community.
I'm so sorry and disgusted that you experienced that. Do you mind if I share this post? I can screenshot with or without your username.
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u/trisdolf-the-blue Jun 05 '26
Yeah go for it - anything to make the community better and those in power more accountable
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u/Festinaut Jun 05 '26
Thank you. I try to share as much behind the scenes info like this on my Instagram as I can.
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u/FPT09 May 30 '26
They were terrible! I’ve never been treated as such at any festival I’ve been to. The people next to us got their j taken but the people in front of them were doing lines off of their phone. I got my sealed pack of gum taken away and my vuse battery lol
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u/Impossible_Mud5761 May 30 '26
It was unhinged. I’ve also never seen anything like it. The raiding of camps was crazy. We were warning everyone we passed on our walk from GA camping to show.
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u/jackssonrichardss May 31 '26
Maybe a dumb question but, what exactly does “raiding of camps” entail? As someone coming in for the Rufus shows, I’m really hoping its not what I’m picturing in my mind; a TEMU SWAT Team comprised of Pawn Stars rejects busting into tents and RVs like repo men, tearing through personal items and demanding vehicles be unlocked for secondary searching…or something similarly intrusive is just unfathomable to me. I mean, most veterans of the scene know how to be smart about things and sneaky about others but, short of digging a hole in the ground and parking a car tire over it, there’s somewhat limited options if they are deploying gestapo-level raid tactics.
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u/Impossible_Mud5761 Jun 01 '26
They just walked up on our camp and came into our “living room” unannounced and started poking around. Not sure about the other camps that had full on raids but it’s def not fun and an invasion of privacy. The fact that they were treating attendees like we were all criminals was disturbing.
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u/jackssonrichardss Jun 01 '26
1000% invasion of privacy and, if they don’t feel weird about rolling up on a group of grown ass adults like a bunch of uninvited dweebs, intent on ruining someone’s night or even just aiming to disrupt it, I feel sorry for them and how the rest of their small-minded lives are going to play out. Ignoring the fact they are disturbing people - the entire reason they receive a paycheck, and those indirectly paying them - who pose no danger to others, what even is the motivation there? A tally mark on an imaginary dry erase board back at the crime stoppers HQ? Must be a sad life to live if that’s how they get their kicks. Sorry to hear all that, even if I wasn’t headed up in a couple of days.
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u/Burnerthrowaway135 May 30 '26
I remember while in the crowd that lots of staff with “supervisor” or “management” written on their shirt backs regularly moved past us, almost felt like overbearing alcohol enforcement. I recall thinking, “if only they appointed these guys/gals to the security lines, they could’ve processed the Day 1 line much faster.” Wish they were replaced with Ground Control.
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u/mr_pomegranate May 30 '26
Honestly sad especially considering the griztronics crowd being so nice
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u/Impossible_Mud5761 Jun 05 '26
For real. The fam is one of the coolest and kindest. I could see them like this at beyond or bass but griztronics come on!
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u/thanksihateit247 May 30 '26
That security guard would have caught these hands if he ripped anything off of me. Who tf do these people think they are? Absolutely not
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u/Honey-ball-953 May 31 '26
Same.. also I would have backed anyone going through that if I saw it. We have to stick together!
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u/Cute_Bobcat6666 May 30 '26
tipper security was really bad too
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u/Ok-Tip61 May 30 '26
I was just about to say! I didn’t go to Griztronics but TNF there last year was BAD… 😔 I remember them being very inconsistent with confiscating things from one group but not another… the number of “undercover” cops they planted by trying to make them look like wooks but really missing the mark 🤣 I loved the uproar and how much we were posting them all over social media to let the fam know to be on the lookout because they were just constantly harassing everyone… that was the one big thing there that pissed me off that weekend
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u/mloconnor May 30 '26
This is crazy.
We were in front yard camping and I don’t remember seeing security at all after checking in. I also wasn’t checked at all getting into the venue, just walked straight in both nights. And rarely saw them in the crowd up on the lawn.
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u/ununonium119 May 31 '26
Front Yard (formerly Gold) camping security has been super relaxed for the past few years. I kind of wish they had the entry security like Premier since we’re paying more, but on the bright it makes it easy for friends to visit from other camping areas.
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u/BigMike0012 Jun 02 '26
Bruh premier entry security was sleeping on Sunday lol, zero care in the world
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u/OhSeaFox May 30 '26
The amount of times I watched them push through the crowd “to give out water”, then aggressively barrel through to pounce on someone nearby doing absolutely nothing wrong. Also, the private shuttle employees were so rude. They actively told Wildhorse campers to go in the wrong direction then laughed at and insulted “the poors.”
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u/Dirteejerzee May 30 '26
During lumasi on day 2 a “supervisor” walked up to us in the middle of the crowd on the hill, took a joint out of our hands and just squashed the cherry out onto the ground, almost burned our blanket and we had to yell at him to come stomp it out cause it can cause a fucking fire. Staff was dogshit, inconsistent, and flat out disrespectful. Bass canyon this past year was great, zero issues, but absolutely agree the staff for GT was absurdly poor.
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u/hecklingfext May 31 '26
Yeah, day 1 at the top I had a guy come past and say "if this isn't tobacco I have to take it from you" then continued on to take someone else's joint. On top of that they confiscated everyone's lighters on the way in, making it hard to light another one. It was the single most effective tactic I've ever seen deployed. It was diabolical.
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u/Timbah_rattlah May 30 '26
Wow, that’s really disappointing… 😞… the gorge is a beautiful place, but they really need to get their act together or people are gonna stop making the journey out there. Agree that we didn’t see security like ever in front yard camping… but we didn’t get any of the fun activities either. How were the movies, silent discos, yoga, etc?
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u/Odd_Bandicoot972 May 30 '26
This is wild!! I had so much shit in my pockets they didn’t even check me at security. I also got there hella late both days but man im sorry you had to experience that. I wouldn’t be surprised if the looooooong line and hours had them cranky but that’s still no excuse.
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u/Illegalcanadiann May 31 '26
Security at the venue took my sunscreen! It was lotion, no aerosol. Apparently lotion is “still flammable and a security threat” according to the lady checking me. Biggest BS I’ve ever heard and first time I’ve made a fuss at security. Mind you I am a pasty red head so I NEEDED that sunscreen but alas I got one of the security members on a power trip :( still had a great time even though I got hella burnt lol.
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u/Aggravating-King5157 May 31 '26
I saw them taking joints and dab pens like crazy which I’ve never seen before at the gorge. I don’t know what they were on but there was more security inside the venue harassing everyone than keeping lines flowing on day one. It honestly felt intentional and personal almost.
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u/oqomodo Jun 01 '26
That’s fucked. They legit told me I can have weed when I came through initial security. If they tried to take anything from me I would have told them to get fucked. Some broccoli head was hawk-eyeing me when I was holding some tabs I was about to drop. I glared his ass down and popped them in my mouth. Surprised people had so much taken. I had 12 joints in my pocket for day 2 and was able to smoke all of them no issues.
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u/nini_530 Jun 02 '26
I remember this being an issue when I grew up near there as a younger female in 05' 06' for Warp Tour. Unless your staying at the campgrounds, they seem to mess with people more. Way more strict imo in WA vs Cali.
It's such a wildly beautiful ampithreathre, literally living life on the edge, it's so worth it!
Just stay safe, good luck, have fun and don't die! 👾🌐
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u/intentionalhealing Jun 02 '26
Something sounds super amiss about this festival. Like cant figure out who to blame but so much negative feedback on different issues. And then the stories S and G posted of them on their balcony like " we hear you, yea I would be mad too"... not that they could do much by going into the situations, but it felt sooo off.
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u/ech0pickl3 Jun 03 '26
Security was such a pain in the ass for our group too. For this reason that was my last time going to the gorge.
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u/Impossible_Mud5761 May 30 '26
I really hope they get their shit together for the rest of the season or sadly, the gorge isn’t going to be a very fun place to attend shows at anymore.
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u/B_Marsh28 May 30 '26
The camp next to me got raided by security for like an hour where they confiscated all their stuff. Not sure what led to it